


learning to lie here in the quiet light

by labeledbones



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: very lightly implied armie/timmy here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 06:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19126837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labeledbones/pseuds/labeledbones
Summary: He is taking lessons in stillness.Some more random Timmy angst because I refuse to let him be happy and well adjusted. And some more Timmy/Saoirse friendship stuff because I refuse to let them go. :)





	learning to lie here in the quiet light

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Quiet Light" by The National which was big mood inspiration for this one and is a very good song you should listen to.

He is taking lessons in stillness. 

_(“Can you stop moving for even a second?” Saoirse hisses at him quietly in the back of a cab._

_He immediately stops playing with the drawstring of his hoodie, stops shaking his leg, stops scrolling through old emails on his phone, and looks at her, considering the question. “I don’t think so,” he says, turning back to his phone, his leg starting up again, the string back between his thumb and forefinger._

_Saoirse leans her head against the window as it starts to snow. “Christ,” she says.)_

He knows he has trouble. He fidgets too much, can never sit still for more than 45 seconds, feels the need to speak into every silence he encounters.

_(“Try this for me,” Saoirse says when they step out of the cab into the dimly lit suburban street he’s been living on for a month._

_And then she just stands there on the sidewalk with her hands in her coat pockets, head tilted up towards the sky, eyes closed._

_He waits for a beat and then asks, “Try what exactly?”_

_A groan, her eyes still closed. “This,” she says, gesturing with her elbows. “Just being here, now. Silent and still.”)_

His life has become unimaginable to him and he cannot stop and be left alone with it. He thinks if he’s left alone with it, it might turn out to be false somehow, not real anymore. He feels like something is always trying to catch up with him and take it all from him, so he moves and moves and moves.

_(He humors Saoirse and moves to stand next to her. He puts his hands deep in his pockets, closes his eyes, slowly tilts his head back._

_“Okay,” he says. “Now what?”_

_He can feel her glaring at him. “Just – Exist, for fuck’s sake. Don’t think about anything but where you are in this moment, what you can feel right now.”_

_Wet snow landing on his cheeks. A cold wind cutting through his hair. Saoirse’s perfume warm and sweet. The low murmur of a car stereo a block or two away. His feet firm on the concrete._

_Saoirse breathes, in and out, deeply._

_“Should I be breathing?” He asks, opening one eye to peer at her._

_Eyes still closed, her laugh is gentle. “Yes, Timmy, you should be breathing.”)_

But he moves so fast he starts to lose track of things, forget things that happened two days ago. He moves so fast it starts to feel like hot panic at the back of his throat. He moves so fast he doesn’t sleep at night.

_(He breathes and feels his chest open up, his shoulders loosen._

_“Good,” Saoirse says, only a little patronizingly._

_He breathes again and feels the winter air in his lungs, thin and cold._

_He breathes again, thinks of a face smiling at him on the inhale, the same face looking away from him on the exhale._

_He breathes again, imagines breathing in the entire universe and keeping it inside of his chest._

_He breathes again, again, again.)_

And so, stillness: In between takes when the camera is being reset or the lights are being changed, in hotel rooms just before the sun finally comes up, on the moving walkway in the airport when he’s too exhausted to do anything but stand there, in those few seconds during an interview before the next question is asked, while the phone rings before the other end picks up with a soft, rumbling, familiar hey.

_(“Okay,” he says, breathing out._

_Saoirse doesn’t say anything._

_“Okay,” he says again._

_He drops his arms and opens his eyes to find Saoirse watching him. “Yeah?” she asks, all of her toughness gone away and replaced with generous affection._

_“Yeah,” he say, smiling.)_

And he is nothing but an actor closing his eyes for a moment and centering himself inside a role. He is nothing but a sleepless 23 year old staring at the blue glow of his phone in a dark room. He is nothing but his tired feet being carried through a corridor. He is nothing but a quick smile, a breath, a rehearsed answer told genuinely. He is nothing but his beating heart waiting for the call to go through.

_(Saoirse’s snowy hair glows orange in the streetlight as she reaches over to tug on his sleeve. She looks up at him. “Do that for me every once in a while, okay?”_

_“Be still,” he says, turning his body towards hers._

_She nods, puts her hands on his shoulders. “Be still,” she says, dragging the word 'still' out in a low, quiet voice._

_He puts his hands on top of hers, holding them for a second before bringing them down from his shoulders and pulling her up the walkway to the house._

_“I’ll try,” he says.)_

He tries.


End file.
